Always a pleasure interacting with @apollon01
Affirm @Victork2
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After another night on the town with @weaponz248 with many um-bongo cocktails consumed, it was a much later start to the day. “Bottle to Throttle” rule was discussed at some point, but we were drinking out of glasses. #nobottlenoproblem
Leg 7: FZAA (N’Djili International Airport, Kinshasa) → FYWH ( Hosea Kutako International Airport, Windhoek)
The weather mid afternoon was lovely, though the forecast en-route didn’t look very good with a lot of thunderstorms predicted. At least I’d managed an earlier start than @weaponz248. 
Sweaty plane outline
Leaving Kinshasa
As I was climbing out from Kinshasa to cruising altitude I switched on the weather radar and it was a sea of red. ATC had me down at 9,500ft, so I requested a higher altitude before I hit the murk.
“Its like Thunder, Lightning…”
Up at FL200 things were much better, I’d climbed over most of the lower stuff with only a small bit of turbulence to worry the passengers. Or so I thought. 
Storms are coming
Midway over Angola the weather radar again lit up. Getting further I could see a wall of storm. Putting on the fasten seatbelt sign, I requested a higher altitude and was restricted to FL230.
Apocalypse now
The storms were at least 30 miles wide and the winds were all over the place. Visually this looks stunning and reminds me very much of Xenviro for XP11.
Break on through to the other side.
Crossing in to Namibia, the storms abated and then it just seemed lots of cloud. Looked very similar to traveling between London and Edinburgh. 
More Northampton than Namibia
Descending into Windhoek and dropping below the cloud, I got a proper first look at the Namibian landscape.
Namibia, land of straight road and tracks
The approach into Windhoek that was given by the ATC took me a bit by surprise. I think I knew what it meant looking at the charts, but had punched selected the ILS runway and hoped what I thought was the correct STAR.
Say what again…
Following the approach, I didn’t get shouted at, so guessed the AP was flying this correctly. I was mildly concerned about the height, Checking the charts, Windhoek is at 5000ft…
Sun setting airport to the right.
On finals
Landing into the setting sun, the visuals were spectacular. A nice touch down and rollout, I taxied to a stop and shutdown.
Shutdown
One more leg left… and another night in the bar 
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So I have a bad habit of not checking my arrival altitudes until Im ready for descent. This one got me too! My GS intercept waypoint called for 8000ft. I almost said nah, ill go normal 2000ft and get it, Africa’s flat right?!?!? 
Glad I didnt, and went with what was programed. The results, a smooth 65 fpm landing!
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Mea culpa. I meant that the post over at SkyDemon forum was mine.
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Ah!!! That makes sense!! That was a really helpful post. Sorry I misunderstood you buddy. Thought you meant on here lol.
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Leg 10, FYWH to FACT!!
Originally scheduled as a E170, it was changed late night to a E145.
At the gate boarding all 38 PAX.
Weather appears better today then it did yesterday, Push back and ready to taxi
Lined up on the runway, ATC gave me the shorter runway, of which I used all of it! @keets if ATC gives you runway 16 or 34 tell them no!!!
And off on the final leg of this trip
At cruise
Descending into FACT, with some excellent weather
Overflying the airport and avoiding the big mountain.
On final
And planted firmly(295fpm) on the ground. Never flown this plane before so I wasnt sure what was going to happen. But all was good and I loved it!
And at the gate, just in time for New Years week!!!
Great trip and awesome location! Looks like Ill be staying in Africa for awhile.
@keets pints are cold and ready!
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that was an excellent planeset @weaponz248 !
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We left Madagascar and did a tour of South East Africa coast. Lot of nice airports were added in the last patch or two.
Well… almost bush tour… this was tight. But we were ‘light’
Nice little airport Virginia. I am happy that we didnt create big crater here
Just a sip of fuel directly on the runway. This thing could turn on a dime fortunately.
15 flaps, full throttle…
Next stop Margate. This time refuelled on apron for a change
And our final destination for today East London. What a nice coincidence. Few hours back I saw picture of a friend with ‘East London’ t-shirt
From here I can almost see Cape Town…
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I’m way behind in writing these up, so I may not finish the writing until after the New Year (since I’ll be out of town for most of the rest of the week), so here goes.
Leg 8: GVNP - GOBD
For this leg I decided to try something different, and rummaging through my hangar, I found this one stashed in the back behind a stack of dusty bins full of old coax and telephone cables and 6V DC chargers “just in case.” She may be old, and she may not look like much, but when it comes to system modeling, she’s got it where it counts.
Cape Verde is a desolate collection of islands in the central Atlantic that weren’t settled or colonized until relatively recently. The country’s main export is fish, and given that there’s still a lot of flying to be had, I think I can pass on picking up any additional gifts here.
Taking off from the sparse facilities, and turning east the rugged volcanic features of the archipelago are readily apparent.
Quickly the islands recede from view, and it’s just me and the lonely ocean again.
As the sun sinks lower in the western sky behind me, it’s time to find some music to fly by. Any musician or dancer knows well the history of African influences on music in the western hemisphere, but what’s not as well known is the impact that western music, in particular Salsa, Merenge, Bachata, and Zouk, have had on western African artists over the last half-century courtesy of Radio Cuba. Because of this, Dakar has long been the center of a vibrant musical scene focused around Latin- inspired sounds. In the Before Times, Dr. Girlfriend and I danced pretty frequently, and one of the clubs we were regulars at often featured Senegalese salsa bands.
An album and a half later, the coast of Dakar is in view.
I might’ve gone slightly download-crazy over at the org site, and one of the things I found was this great updated night lighting for the African continent, broken down by country.
In addition to the music scene and nightlife, Dakar is also home to the Maison des Esclaves museum and memorial and its Door of No Return, on Goree Island, visible to the right of the picture under my nose in the following picture.
Blaise Diagne Airport is visible ahead. It’s fairly new, having only opened in December 2017.
Shutting down for the night, before setting out to explore the nightlife.
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Leg 9: GOBD - DGAA
So when there’s an Org store sale on, and you find yourself with a bunch of points to redeem, what do you do? Buy stuff, of course! I couldn’t resist the shiny skin because, well, I like shiny things.
Taking off shortly after sunrise.
Some time later, and not including the redo (twice) with the FMS that led me back over Dakar, I’m crossing the Gambia River into Gambia.
This is the default scenery, with only the DLC package from Steam installed. I have to say, I’m impressed.
Passing over Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire. Unfortunately the default scenery doesn’t include the skyscrapers that make up most of this economic capital of west Africa, and I didn’t have any ortho installed for the city (gotta save hard drive space somewhere). I’m sure this area looks stunning in MSFS though.
Flying into Accra, the capital of Ghana. I had installed orthos for this, but I got an error message that they weren’t working correctly- hence the big blobs that make up most of the scenery. Disappointing, as a very good friend of mine is from Accra, and has told me great things about the city.
On the ground at Kotoka International Airport. The Legacy 650 fits in perfectly with the heavies from international airlines, right?
Attractions to visit here include the DeBois Center, named for American sociologist and historian W.E.B. DuBois, who spent his last years in Accra, and is buried there; additionally there’s Ussher Fort, one of three fortresses in Accra built by European powers in the 1600’s to facilitate the growing slave trade. It’s been preserved as a memorial and museum of the history and legacy that’s left on Ghana. Finally, there’s Labadi (or La Pleasure) Beach, on the coast on the eastern side of town. With the weather hovering in the 90’s, it’s worth checking out.
Next leg is going to be a very, very long one, most of the way across the continent to Burundi.
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Love the Embraer…one of my favorites…
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Nice choice, my finger was hovering over SSG E-Jets package… But didn’t proceed eventually
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They are good jets, but It might be worth holding out till next year sometime as X crafts is apparently working on a 170/175/190/195 package.
That skin is great. We (UK) used to have a Hawker Hunter on the display circuit called ‘Miss Demeanour’ that looked a bit like that:
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Oh, that’s beautiful.
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Sadly the Royal Navy pilot who owned and displayed her sold it a few years ago to Canada. She is still flying doing tactical training in the USA, Canada and France, but looks grey now.
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The final leg was slightly delayed due to a technical issue with my PC’s cooler. A slight bit of maintenance and all was again well and ready to set out and meet @weaponz248 in the bar. Again.
Leg 8: FYWH ( Hosea Kutako International Airport, Windhoek) → FACT (Cape Town International)
A dreary start in Windhoek, the thunderstorms must have been heading down from Angola the previous day whilst I was engaged in maintenance activities.
Rains on a plane
Fortunately the METAR showed favorable weather in Cape Town and its not as if this BA A320 hadn’t seen rain before.
Flex Temp entered, Throttle set, brakes off… Go
We’d been cleared to FL190 immediately by Windhoek departure, so the climb out was quite steep. Especially with full re-heat.
Up she goes
Skirting the weather
The route south was pretty straightforward, aside from a wide turn on departure. Climb up to FL390 and then drop in to Cape Town.
Hardap Reservoir
Flying south there was a lot of nothingness, though a reservoir and dam came into view. This turned out to be Hardap Reservoir with, according to the map, the River Fish flowing out of it. I thought about googling “What Fish swim in the Fish…” but thought it would pose a risk, of the internet folding in on itself.
More consulting of the map showed I’d fly over a place called “Keetmanshoop”…
Keetmanshoop airport
Finally I could see the coast and I recognised the coast line. Almost there.
Cape Town in the distance
Descending over the mountains to the north and the outskirts of Cape Town, I could see Table Mountain in the distance.
The land of the vuvuzela
There was something funny about the ILS runway 01 approach, probably something I’d done, but on capturing the localiser the airbus assumed I’d be flying ILS19 and turned me out to sea. As a result I switched off the autopilot turned round and flew a manual approach.
“Its the final countdown…”
The touchdown was nice and gentle, reverse thrust applied and turned off the second taxiway looking for Gate A10.
Down… now get those flaps up
Arrived Cape town. FACT.
Finally stopping and switching off, I was relieved to have made the destination having failed to complete the previous 3 years Xmas flights.
Its been great fun, the A320 with the A32NX mod is fun to fly and feels about the right depth for what I want out of an airliner. I still need to work on airnav and procedures, but I am miles away in knowledge from when I completed the Antarctic flight 4 years ago.
Special mention and thanks to @weaponz248 for the company on the last few legs. Now lets see about that pint.
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Ten years ago, my upstairs neighbor spent the summer hopping all over the continent going to World Cup matches.
He brought at least four vuvuzelas back with him.
He and his roommate decided that they were the most fun things to play at 2am after coming home drunk from the bars. And, because this was Pacific Beach in San Diego, that was a thing that happened 5-6 nights a week for a long while.
It took the girls in our apartment complex a good three months of work before they found and neutralized them all.
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Agreed. I like the SSG stuff…but for the Embraer line-up, I do prefer the X-Crafts versions. It might be a season-to-taste type thing…but the X-Craft versions are superb in VR.
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was wondering why there was no update in a long time for the X-C E-Jets while they were releasing updates for ERJ-Family
I agree, it might be a taste thing, for my naked eye SSG E-Jets cockpits looks nicer from the pics, no VR here. from the perspective of features lists they look similar to me but maybe I missed something
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